The theatrical release of Jurassic World brings a chance to go back 65 million years to a bygone age when dinosaurs walked the earth. Ever since Sir Richard Owen discovered the first dinosaur in 1828, humans have wondered what it would be like to live alongside these ancient creatures. As science became more widespread, the scenarios that made this possible became more and more far-fetched, from cavemen to entire worlds at the center of the planet. That all changed 25 years ago when Michael Crichton gave us Jurassic Park, backing dinosaur fantasies with hard science and showing us what living with dinosaurs would really be like — terrifying! The book went on to spawn one of the definitive movies of the ’90s, a thriller with unforgettable and horrifying monsters. Almost all of the science was dropped in favor of one of the great Jeff Goldblum roles. Three more sequels were released in the theaters, and one more in book form. So Jurassic Park was huge, but how was it as a book?

Every book shifts drastically from page to screen, and Jurassic Park more than most. The book was a morality play on the dangers of unexamined science and karmic retribution, with dinosaurs used as metaphor, the sugar to help the medicine go down.. Characters who expressed scientific views Crichton didn't like were eaten by dinosaurs in very messy ways. A quarter of a century on, many of those views have become outdated. At the time, the warm-blooded vs. cold-blooded debate was barely common knowledge, and the idea that many dinosaurs would have feathers was barely crossing paleontologist desks, much less the public consciousness.

Fortunately, the book has dinosaurs, and it has dinosaurs in far greater quantities than any of the movies. In a movie, a Tyrannosaurus Rex costs millions of dollars. In literature, a Tyrannosaurus Rex costs 16 letters. The result is dozens more dinosaur encounters in a wider range of species. Jurassic Park is the definitive adult dinosaur novel.